In which I am eeeeeevil.
I participated in a leetle wee bit of goodnatured workplace teasing of a young man who has recently become a father for the first time. When I walked up to the conversation, the subject was something about toddlers and tantrums and food. My mind went straight back to the egg days. One surefire way to stuff a little protein into our first 0% growth-rate kiddo (our kids were very healthy, just small!) was to feed her an egg every morning and we had many versions of scrambled eggs that she could choose from: Mama Egg, Daddy Egg, Rolled-up Egg, Grandma Egg, and Ron’s Egg. For the life of me, I cannot remember the difference between all of them, except that a Mama Egg was made in a little bowl in the microwave and I think the only difference between a Daddy Egg and a Rolled-up Egg was that the Rolled-up Egg was, well, rolled up. I can’t remember exactly what a Grandma Egg was and, alas, Ron’s Restaurant is out of business. Just ask the GG about his walking trip over there.
I decided to kick it up a notch and started talking about having a 23-y/o college grad in the house and how I hardly ever interact with her unless I am actually somewhat sentient at that batscope hour of the night. You know. 3:00 AM or so. I exaggerate. She doesn’t always stay out that late but I work during the day and she usually works in the evening and by the time she gets home, I am usually crashed out. And she isn’t ready to sleep yet because she has just gotten off of work. Yada yada yada. You may know about this…
And then somebody said something about waking up at that batscope time of the night to the smell of something cooking. Ohhhh yes!!! Kids cooking in the middle of the night! One of my favo-rite memories was the time that Lizard Breath and TBJess made a loverly dish for the multicultural potluck at their high school the next day. I think they were making a Thai recipe and I’m not sure what happened but it, uh, stunk up the whole house and, if I’m not mistaken, there was a bit of a “discussion” the next morning about whose vee-hickle would ferry the dish down to the school. Thank god my vee-hickle wasn’t one of the choices.
The talk went on and eventually we began the inevitable slide back down toward poop and stuff like that. I was thinking about telling the whole “dinosaurs poop in the grass” story but then my long-suffering, cat-herding boss told a poop story that sent us all running for the hills screaming. I won’t repeat it except to say that it involved a toddler, a poopy diaper, and a dog. You can use your imagination.
Our new father still has stars in his eyes and he may think he knows what’s ahead of him but, really, you never know until you have lived through it. He is at the beginning and the baby is healthy and *gorgeous* and her poop isn’t messy or even stinky yet.
Scrambled eggs and stinky Thai food experiment aside, my beach urchins are better cooks than I am these days. Or at least more imaginative. I still make eggs for the quarter-centenarian when she’s home from SanFran. Except that nowadays, it’s more often than not a once-over-easy egg on an English muffin with lettuce, tomato, bacon, and avocado. If I can find a decent avocado here in the god-forsaken Great Lake State. Do not send a man to buy avocados here in the GLS, that is all I can say…
August 16th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Yeah, the baby stage is so easy compared to adult children. I love that sandwich because I adore ANYTHING with avocado, although you probably shouldn’t ask me to pick one out either. I’m also awful at choosing melons. As a true Washingtonian, I’m pretty good with apples though. I would get VERY grumpy when my kids cooked in the middle of the night; they never cleaned up to my standards. EVER!!
August 16th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Nothing worse than waking up to a sink full of dishes.
August 17th, 2010 at 3:46 am
And especially do not hope to find a decent avocado in the UP….
August 17th, 2010 at 6:44 am
we are a baby sandwich these days, with a newborn on one side and twin newborns on the other. we hear babies crying all the time, which we actually love. it helps that we don’t have to pick them up or change their diapers. i often wonder how my parents handled ten of us. and i think the answer is, “as well as they could, and haphazardly.” we were constantly doing things in the middle of the night that they had no idea of. happier household that way.